Salon for the Soul

Together in Spirit

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Sat, 30 May 2015 05:16:00 -0700

The place Dan and Donne reside in my heart and how we are connected via Spirit

Soon, I will have to release another sacred friend and Quaker minister from my life and heart. The first time, seven years ago, was traumatic. Dan had been my friend, monthly sharing a cup of tea when my kids were little, stumbling over them as they grew and even writing a message (short sermon) about the time when Autumn, just potty trained, offered to sit and hold his hand while he used the bathroom. "Everything I learned about ministering, I learned from Autumn," I think he titled it.

Dan was VERY hard to let go of because he was the first person whom I could trust to talk about deep spiritual things, like the time I drove home from the Quaker Meeting and felt every red light and reflector glare at me as if evil or when I confessed I wasn't sure who Jesus was to me and he responded, "Me, either."

In the last year or so, we have gotten back in touch and it has been a joy. Over time, I learned to understand that the complete separation was necessary.

Necessary so I and my Meeting could establish rapport with a new minister, who happened to be Donne. I had been tasked with serving on a selection committee when, suddenly and separately, two people became acquainted with a recent Earlham School of Religion (Quaker) graduate serving a Unitarian congregation part-time. I met Donne on her first interview and was physically moved by Spirit to know she was the one for us. I was so convinced that, when our selection committee met in worship, I felt my heart being squeezed and knew Spirit was offering Donne as a gift. The person next to me said she had felt it as well. So clear that I stood aside, as Quakers say, and removed myself from the committee so they could continue their work. I would not change my mind. Another Friend was equally certain the search should continue. Eventually, Donne was hired.

Now, her cycle has ended. In a rare spate, I've missed three weeks of worship and touch with what is happening in my Meeting. I called Donne this afternoon, driving home from my new job. I wanted to catch her up on what was going on and suggest that, because of the new situation, I may not make all of the ministry retreat this weekend. She told me she was was tied up in a transaction and would call back.

Intuitively, I knew she was buying the RV she had mentioned months ago. She had dreamed of traveling. However, I hadn't quite made the connection that she was leaving.

We caught up earlier this evening at the retreat, which Dan was also scheduled to attend. Coincidence? Donne got a call a week ago that the simple-but-popular RV she wanted had walked onto the lot, did she want it? Yes, she'd said. If not, three others were in line behind her.

It's her time to be free. "Sounds like you've been released," I said, instantly recognizing that my ministry has been given the same message in the last week.

In her exit letter, Donne writes "... I must let go of you and ask you to let go of me. In other words, I have been your minister–a friendly one, I hope–but now someone else will be called to be your minister ... I will miss you deeply and love you always."

"Can I do this again, God? This is the second person I've counted on to discuss deep things I rarely share with others. Dan and Donne have both seen the real me and have helped me see it in myself."

Yet, I know her cycle is over and it is time for her to move on from her ministry and into the unknown just as I am. Separated, but together, we will trust Spirit to guide us. That will always unite us.

• How do I say goodbye?
• Who was the first person with whom I could have profound spiritual discussions?
• How do I value that gift?
• How have I learned to let go?
• How do I trust Spirit in my own life and in others I love?

she came in on
a whisp

arriving just
as we needed her

like Mary Poppins

as we grieved our
previous loss,

we saw she possessed
different gifts

gifts we sorely
needed

she had this way
of flowing in and
around like water

wherever
she was needed

showing us the way

as Spirit is showing
her now,

only in a direction
a part from us

Listen to this post:

Have I been faithful?

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 12 May 2015 12:01:00 -0700

The luxury of time to move and sort, pitch and remember has been a gift. A gift of solitude and gratitude.

After a rambunctious and unusual Artsy Fartsy session Saturday, I am taking down the big stuff, shifting packed boxes into moving positions, no matter where that happens to be in the room, and very much aware that the room is disappearing. I didn't want the kids to witness this piece. I'd packed most of m personal possessions and things tucked and squirreled away, leaving the objects that have come to define my studio and to which the children have responded: the meditation tent, theater seats, art tables and Ikea stools, my desk, posters and their art on the walls, streams of colorful fabric draped from the ceiling and the full bulletin boards.

Our memory flag created for leaving Milford Main

Today, however, the gloves are off and my mission is to smartly pack, move and store. I am relentless in pitching and recycling and may become more obsessive as I get everything into a box and see how much there truly is. I am already figuring a two-person system of getting my large garbage bags into the dumpster: having one outside on the ground below a second-story window and the other tossing down the bag, which should land only a few feet from the trash bin. The recyclable I may have to transport somewhere else.

I've been darting back and forth, packing this and that, adding to unfilled boxes with similar items. Before desiring a break to blog, I carefully folded 15 man-sized striped and plaid shirts the kids have used for paint smocks. It was almost like putting away my daughter's baby clothes. I could picture the kids in these enormous shirts and unrolled several sets of sleeves.

As I was rolling up posters, I opened what I thought to be an empty mailing tube. Tucked inside was a poster of two children holding hands and the caption: Companionship: those who bring sunshine to the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.

It opened some emotions as I drifted back to 14 years ago and the wonderful Neighbor-to-Neighbor group I organized. That was a three-year stint just as Artsy Fartsy has been. And the Neighbor-to-Neirghbor still meets! All of the touching and personal thank-you notes on the back became an echo of what I needed to hear about Artsy Fartsy ... the words I don't actually hear from families, but know they carry:

"You're a jewel and an inspiration.

Thank you for all you do.

God bless your caring spirit,

Thank you for your energy and compassion.

Thank you for following your heart and getting us all together.

Thank you for your hard work and inspiration.

A big heartfelt thank you for initiating and following through with Neighbor to Neighbor."

Saturday was tough. After reminder post cards, phone calls and volunteer drivers, only three kids were out and about waiting. I knocked on many unanswered doors and was told kids had other plans. We eventually ended up with 9. We've had as many as 17 at once. I really wanted them to be here to say goodbye. That was my projection.

One dad asked if I'd stop by and pick up a pizza for his wife. "No, David," I replied not very graciously. "After I drop your boys off at the school, I need to head up to Oakbrook for kids, run back and run the program." Little Caesar's is a five minute walk for him.

During our session, I pretended not to hear one of the girls say she and her friend needed a ride that night. She aimed it at me.

I was feeling under appreciated until I ran across the poster and those words that helped me see they are as appropriate now as then. Thank you, Spirit!

• How do I handle times of transition?

• Can I find reflective moments within those times?

• Can I find Spirit in the bittersweet space?

• When has Spirit provided something I desperately needed?

• How did I express my gratitude?

just because I

have spent time

transitioning,

I expected the

kids to want

that as well

to recognize that

this special

thing we've

been a part of

was changing

but, they're

just kids

struggling

in their

families

and to

survive

hardness

instead,

God sent

me a special

message,

whispered

years ago

yet in the

hearts of

those I serve

helping replace

my question of

"Have I been

successful" with

"Have I been

faithful?

Losing the path of shoulds

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 5 May 2015 09:34:00 -0700

The last of four workshops aimed at creative entrepreneurs ended yesterday. I discovered the series serendipitously, signing up last-minute. Something spoke to me. Possibly that as I sort and move my studio, I am sorting myself. Clearly, I see this as a period of endings, beginnings and re-shaping.

Branding expert Darla Kirchner suggested several times that we name or hone our mission, define our ideal client, look at our target audience and ways to connect. And then she dove in deep to collaborating live, virtually and via social media. She really de-mystified it for me. Much of her charm is that she has learned this the old-fashioned way: by doing it herself.

©Tad Barney photograph/www.tadbarney.com

While I have been exploring my business, I have also been probing myself. It has become quite apparent that before I can connect, I really to need to know who I am in this moment and where I intend to head. When I showed Darla my crazy map of all the projects I have in the works, she said "Pick one – the one that's in your heart."

So, after the last workshop, I took my notebook, map and computer and plunked down outside with an iced coffee to do just that.

A rather large grant, due next week, has been hanging over my head. I am discerning if I really want to do the project attached to the grant or am only doing it because it can draw funding. I really have been attempting to distance myself from what seems projected on me (by myself and others) and listening to my heart. That's not so easy in normal, everyday, busy life.

In the past, when I felt this way, I scheduled a retreat in a quiet, safe place. Those have always been so productive. I don't feel the urge right now. I am supposed to do this work in the here and now, in my normal, busy, everyday life. Somehow, organizing, packing and pitching is meditative and offering a shift in perspective. As If I can take the longer view.

A recent re-birthing with my shaman is very much a part of this. I have released the anxiety of not knowing what's next and giving myself the space to be prayerful and discern my path through Spirit. I have many pieces, but no clear picture of how they fit. The workshop has been a tool to help me piece them together; especially Darla's advice to look deep within.

I read Richard Rohr's meditation today about the Desert Mothers and Fathers and their apart-ness that allowed them to live in solitude and silence. Rohr writes:

"They recognized that they had to find inner freedom from the system before they could return to it with true love, wisdom, and helpfulness."

How true is that? Very, I believe. I am tasked with locating that inner freedom while living alongside the system, much like being in the world and not of it. I have never really understood how to do that, until now. Making peace with the word, for me, is necessary. Unwounding myself, such as in the rebirth process, is key. Through all of this, I have been painfully aware that I am confronting my real self. Rohr spoke to that today:

"Solitude is a courageous encounter with our naked, most raw and real self, in the presence of pure love."

Barely a handful of very precious times, Spirit has let me see myself through her eyes. I traveled there again during my re-birthing. In a flash, I experienced myself at birth, my daughters and a car accident I have let over-define who I am. I learned that I am filled with light, as are my daughters and all children of God. Also that the accident changed my path, my course in life and I should be joyful, not angry.

I am joyful that I am privileged to live out of the mainstream, yet alongside it. I am grateful to Darla for showing me how to look into my heart in a practical way to allow me to be more of how I am and show more of that light-filled self to the world.

I am ok living in the cloud of unknowing.

• When have I disassembled myself?
• What were the results?
• What helpers surfaced?
• How can I live apart from the world?
• What spiritual practices support me?

I've been
following
the path of
shoulds

as if I
were
someone
else

living
by a code
that has
never
fit me

attempting
to measure
up, while
eroding
my real
self

when I let
the heart lead,
instead of the
brain,

I get back
on course

toward
Spirit

Listen to this post:

Life is a gift

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Fri, 1 May 2015 12:02:00 -0700

My oldest, 17-and-a-half, finally obtained her driver's license yesterday. She wanted no fanfare because of being embarrassed about how long it had taken her. No Facebook posts and, maybe, she would be bothered by this. She passed with only two points off and a lot of beforehand grief on her part.

We had a very sweet and honest conversation on the way to the exam station. I hadn't prodded her much for information on why she delayed, I know she does things in her own time and for her own reasons. She was a 29-hour birth delivery.

And I have really been pondering what that 29 hours must have been like for her after recently confronting my violent birthing process and re-doing it.

In the car on the way to the driving exam, my daughter grew very anxious, her cheeks flushed. "Mom," she confessed, "I hate when this happens. I have performance anxiety, even in band. I make myself crazy."

She was asking me for help. We talked about deep breathing and looking at the benefit she will gain afterward. I insisted that she NOT beat herself up, but I know how the self works in moments like these. When she was little and become anxious, I soothed her with Rescue Remedy, Bach flower homeopathic drops recommended by a friend. They seemed to work. I hadn't even thought – in the busyness of my day – to tote them along this time. I had not realized that she still struggled.

It breaks my heart. And leads me to wonder how much she struggled and became anxious during her birthing process: being forced into labor by drugs when she wasn't ready. Almost 11 days late and with no amniotic fluid, the doc said we couldn't risk waiting any longer. Like me and many of us, she was forced out. Perhaps not with forceps, but with drugs.

"What happens to the mother, happens to the child," my shaman had told me last week. Just how did this baby experience the drugs. Did they make her anxious?

That state, she confided, is why she had waited so long to take her test. I had no idea and guessed it was more her perfectionist tendencies. "No. Mom. I let those go. I was avoiding getting worked up."

I centered and remained calm, working with her to breathe and reminding her how we automatically go into shallow breathing when we feel stressed. That the long, deep breath is cleansing and a signal to the brain and body to relax.

She settled some, but the delay in her appointment, I knew, stirred the anxiousness. And then, it was her turn. I laid my hand on her knee as the tester emerged from the previous nervous teen and tried to send her calming energy. And then she was gone. Off on her own, doing big, grown-up things over which I had no control. For a split second, I could have fallen apart and into her anxiety, but I chose to ask Spirit in and hold her as close as possible. "Just be with her and let her feel you."

We had talked about prayer in times of distress and she revealed that she had pursued that path. I was grateful. And I knew, right now, God was with her – no matter what. Then I could let go.

Apparently she did, too, and came in with a grin. "It was so much easier than I thought;" almost the same words she used after her temporary-driving permit book test.

As Jesus said "...with God all things are possible."

• When have I witnessed or experienced the grip of anxiety?
• How do I deal with stress?
• How do I help others deal with stress?
• How do things change when I invite God in?
• How have I learned that with God all things are possible?

over ripe
by medical
standards

she wasn't
quite ready
to enter
this world

I wasn't
either

yet have
learned
I am meant
to be here,
now

Spirit
planted
me

as she
planted
my daughter

in the
here and
now

teaching
life is
a gift

Listen to this post:

A conscious birth

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 10:05:00 -0700

Earth day was a fabulous [re]birthday that not even I had planned.

Grateful for a slower pace on Wednesday, I made my way to my monthly shamanic-counseling appointment. It wasn't until I crept in my quiet Prius down the long, leaf-cloaked lane and into the path that circles the house and spied an extra car that I realized I was two hours too early. Forgot to check my calendar.

No worries, I'll just head to the nearby library and spend some time reflecting on what I desire from this session. I untucked my laptop, logged in and searched spiritual companionship. I have felt in desperate need of some. I landed on a page about developing a partnership of trust and I realized I already possess that relationship with my shaman.

And, then I began to think that even if I don't have one, constant spiritual companion, I have many. That revelation was reassuring and reminded me of the idea of looking for the helpers at given times in life. Fred Roger's learned that tip from his mother:

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, m mother would say to me 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'"

I have been looking for helpers in pointing me in the right direction, so I continued scouring the website. Reading deeper, my breath left for a moment learning about a process that will reset your body's cells on a primal and transformative level, erasing patterns of illness. YEP, that's what I was looking for ahead of my appointment.

Three times in recent months, wise people have suggested I look at childhood trauma and its connection with my fibromyalgia. I couldn't locate any until I went all the way back ... to birth.

I always knew this was me/pastel and paint on paper

I returned to my shaman peaceful and focused on undertaking a rebirthing process. He was delighted to accommodate me and was open for whatever would transpire. We talked a bit about how our birth circumstances cast a shadow our entire life. I told him that all my mother remembers is being knocked out and that I came head first, my sister, feet first five minutes later. I was lovingly teased as a child that I was really red and had a pointed head after birth. It wasn't easy being the first out and, likely, assisted by forceps. I always told my sister she kicked me out to make sure it was safe.

My shaman helped me understand that whatever happens to the mother happens to the child and with my mother unconscious, I was as well and that's the state I return to during transitions. He confirmed this with his own birth story.

I am definitely in transition, moving a studio, re-evaluating my path and living in the cloud of unknowing for the moment. I want to be clear and aware, not asleep. I want to consciously choose what's next by listening to Spirit.

On the massage table, I rebirthed myself in a rhythmic, gentle and intentioned way guided by my spiritual companion. He asked me to hold out my arms (my eyes were closed through the process, probably a nod to my unconscious birth) and accept the baby. As I did, a flood of memories of my birth, those of my daughters and the accident that set off the fibromyalgia opened, followed by effusive light and a sense of empowerment not unlike when I feel unconscious. There's a distinct, but very thin line.

Almost a week later, I am letting that experience settle down into my core and re-arrange my cells. My awareness has been shifted and I am not anxious about my current state of unknowing because I know Spirit is with me – always. I know it in every cell now, thanks to this rebirthing.

This transition as a matter of choice is more clear. Taking contemplative time to sort it out is my path.

Saturday, my daughters and I ventured out in the wicked, torrential rain to shop at Ikea and gorge on their coffee and real cream. I almost asked my 17-year-old to drive, but decided she wasn't experienced enough in heavy rain on the highway. Traffic was moving pretty quickly when, oddly, the sun broke through in patchy places, actually decreasing visibility. As I began to exit for another highway, I noticed cars crumpling like toys one into another. I instantly knew not to head in that direction and forced the car out into traffic with no opportunity to look. I employed the brakes and came to a stop. Not one car was anywhere near us. I let out a sigh and don't really remember getting to Ikea, though it was safely. My youngest felt sick after seeing cars pile into each other, My oldest emerged with a bear hug and a "Mom, I wouldn't have known what to do."

I sent them off to shop, while I recovered with a coffee. I was steady and not unnerved. I began to wonder if others were hurt, so decided to check online. I found no notice of the accident, but a news story about a fatal shooting the night before. One block from where we had been about the same time.

THANK YOU, God, I silently screamed ... for keeping us safe and letting me know clearly that I am still here because that's what you want. The earlier message I'd receives "not to jump into anything" had become "not to jump into anything ELSE" but God's arms.

I sit here still stunned by the string of incidents, grateful and wondering if by experiencing the pain I have tried to escape all these years simply means I am fully awake. Not unconscious.

• What's my birth story?
• Can I see its impact or patterns in my life?
• How could I create opportunity for rebirth?
• Where do I find the comfort and understanding of spiritual companions?
• When have I felt full awake?

weeks melting into
months, morphing
into years

trying to
escape the
pain

which had
a very real
lesson

wake up
wake up

I have put
you here

life is a
gift

not a
burden

Listen to this post:

Just follow

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 10:03:00 -0700

Three years ago to the month, I was dreaming, slowly unpacking and savoring my new, light-filled studio in a former classroom. It had taken me six years to get here and since the first inner promptings of Spirit initiated this adventure.

That six years seemed like forever. And the three since have vanished too quickly. However, I can count the many blessing in between:

• The luxury of space and quiet to listen to God regularly.
• Using that gift to create an arts exploration for then unknown children, though Jordan, Alivia and Jihad had infiltrated my heart and were the target to which I was drawing closer. I had met them as an art-room volunteer and they melted my heart and planted the seed for a program, where other kids from their complex could shine.
• Having an empty classroom as a blank canvas in which to create a sacred studio.
• Actually hosting Artsy Fartsy here initially with six girls and now with 21 on the roster, including boys.
• Dreaming up a series of classes or single, creative workshops and having the perfect space to pull them off.
• Finding a place to hold all of my ministry.
• Being at the heart of the community and my neighborhood.
• Sharing in the patina of wonderful things that have happened here since 1912.
• Making art here.
• Writing blogs and books here.
• Sharing this section with other artists, including my husband.
• Feeling community.
• Always knowing my stay was tenuous, but planting roots anyway.
• Inviting others here to find a way to save this building.
• Knowing I have been faithful.

I have come to realize that what I believed to be impatient waiting for the next step has actually been grief named by two wise ministers.

I have known this place with the young-adult loss of my best friend, a miscarriage and the passing of in-laws, grandparents, beloved aunts and uncles, even family pets. I had not equated it to a space or my work. I have come and gone from many jobs over the years, but never mourned them quite like this. This wasn't a job, it was ministry and emanated from my heart.

How it began

With this new insight, I spent yesterday relishing being in the quiet space and carefully packing what can go to storage. It wasn't a chore, but a ritual. Packing away the wonderful presence of Spirit here that has witnessed and facilitated so much transformation in me, the kids and others here to volunteer or participate in a workshop or class.

Room 102, a former math room, is totally infused with God and it will remain even if the last brick is yanked out.

Where it is ending

Yesterday, I was sad and the ritual helped. That is one important lesson I learned working for a casket company. Rituals are there for the times, like grief, when we don't know what to do and we must do something. Rituals are comforting and offer meaning. Even my own, by myself.

Writing this blog seems part of the letting-go ritual. I am savoring this task more than normal, not skipping through to get it finished, edited, recorded and posted.

I sense God between the words, on the keyboard, in my heart and head. She knows this is a bittersweet time. Yet, today, I am growing more toward deep, quiet joy, calm and peace as I move from one known thing into one unknown – at the direction of Spirit.

My prayer two days ago was for spiritual companionship and I received it abundantly. I also asked for simplicity (taking the time to pack) and abundance (the richness of companionship and empathy from so many).

I don't know where I am going. And, today, that's just fine.

An hour ago I was speaking with one of my current spiritual companions. His church has promised me space to do Artsy Fartsy. That may be the simplicity that I am seeking. Just knowing they are there, supportive and available makes all of the difference.

So does what my pastoral counselor told me Wednesday. He looked me dead in the eye and said: "You have made a difference ... in the lives of those kids. Whether or not you continue, their live shave been changed for the better."

As has mine.

• When have I found ritual a comfort?
• How?
• How have I learned to surrender to Spirit?
• What practices, companions or experience help me trust?
• When can I walk one step at a time?

the cool, soothing
air drifts in the
open window

for the first time
this season

as if a finger
unfurling

calls me
out into
the unknown

suggesting
it is time
to move on

God has
another plan

just
follow

Listen to this post:

Losing sight of wholeness

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 09:19:00 -0700

"I have a wonderful [business] partnership, so much so that when my partner was way too busy and couldn't say no, I told her we should cancel. That we weren't in the right place. She was grateful."

When I related that information Monday at the second in a series of workshops I am taking on collaboration in the arts, I added "You know, had this been in the corporate world, we would have had to move on no matter what. No breaks for family life or time-outs when needed," I confessed to Darla, our daring facilitator.

"That's why you are an entrepreneur," she gently tossed back at me.

That's the second time in two weeks she has given me an essential truth I needed to hear and in the right moment when I could listen. Last week, she said she had to let her perfectionist tendencies go and just get things done the best she could. Of all the marvelous things she said and reminded me of, this was crucial and it just sort of slipped out. I am not sure it was in her notes.

So, according to Darla wisdom, I chose to be an entrepreneur to control my schedule and I can curb my perfectionism and the world won't fall apart.

Before Monday, I hadn't considered what I am doing as either entrepreneurial or a choice. That insight is causing a shift in me. A BIG one. Perhaps from listlessness and either accepting what comes along or taking it all on to understand this is a choice, a positive one and not a sentence.

I have also heard the term artpreneur. That seems very much in line with where I am these days. Whether writing and planning to publish, making art, leading creative workshops, grant writing and working with low-income kids, I AM my own boss. I tend to lose sight of that in all of the busyness and far-flung projects.

As a result of these workshops, I drew out all the things I am doing -- ALL five -- and trying to see similarities and places to simplify. I did this last fall, yet things have shifted majorly.

Artsy Fartsy Saturdays: serves a very specific population and geographic location, has grown and successfully attracted grants. However, I need a new home by June 1, must assemble a board to help me apply for my own non-profit status and continue to seek funding. Not so simple: new home, new board, new status, more funding solicitation. I have also initiated a book I'd like to write online as a fundraiser about the experience of launching this incredible program.

Art Truck: This concept popped into my head several months ago when I was meeting with a very energetic, get-things-done photography teacher with a big heart. She will be on my board if/when that happens. Didn't even hesitate when I asked. It was an after thought in a conversation about finding a new location. For a few, brief moments, a larger arts business was interested, but decided they had too many initiatives. Then I applied for a new grant for individuals. Yesterday, I heard I was not one of those selected. The week before, I heard from ArtsWave that my video request had been advanced to the next round and another large application, but for bigger money than I have ever sought. I adore this idea of taking art directly to those who don't have access, plus doing some fun gigs in-between. Adding a vehicle, new venue and drumming up support through social media is a whole, other venture. What if I am too busy? I asked my husband, then realized the ridiculousness. I am less afraid of failing than getting too busy.

Salon for the Soul: The blog I have faithfully been writing weekly, sometimes twice a week, for five years. I want to continue and create a devotional from the many entires. That means culling the 500-plus posts, re-writing and paring down and publishing in some form. And building a larger audience. In reality, the groundwork is in place. Maybe not too unsimple.

Turtlebox Stories & Studio: Essentially my physical space and the playful, nurture workshops/retreats I have conducted, which all stem from my first journals and the book I created from them. It's been resting while I taught it. Now the teaching has been resting. I would REALLY love to travel with these workshops and retreats. Someday will be the right time for the book.

Pain as Spiritual Teacher: A chapter from the Turtlebox book that jumped out at me as something wonderful in a workshop format as did the perfect partner, my first yoga teacher, Renee, who also lives with chronic pain. We spent a year doing small, intro sessions, 4-hour workshops and, finally, a stint at the wildly popular Victory of Light Psychic Festival. We had a good, receptive crowd, but got so caught up in what we were doing, we forgot to ask people to sign our e-mail list. We planned a February workshop, but canceled after our festival faux pas and busyness in our lives. Interesting that our Facebook page continues to be active, I think we need to write an article or book together and focus on this rather, specific and hungry audience.

I always joke that I have branding issues and that was my struggle yesterday. How do these all fit under one umbrella ... interesting choice of words as I am looking for a financial umbrella for Artsy Fartsy. Of course, the common thread is me, that these are mission/heart driven and creatively address the spiritual on some level. My map showed me that Artsy Fartsy really is the kid side of Turtlebox; that Salon for the Soul is my vital attempt at community; that Pain as Spiritual teacher is the deep, helping-others-heal work I do with the perfect partner; and, maybe, just maybe, the Art Truck is too much. It can go anywhere to anyone and could be the vehicle, pun intended, for what I take on the road.

When I look at my map, I see that Darla is exactly right. I have created all of these and that makes me an entrepreneur. Then, when I apply her next keen observation about perfectionism, I wonder what can go, be put on hold or rest awhile. Of course, I want to do it all NOW. That's not been working so well. Too many balls to juggle.

What is the simple path forward? The one that is joyful, Spirit-infused and abundant?

• When have I had too much on my plate?
• How did I discern or decide what stayed and what was cast aside?
• How do I seek Spirit in these matters?
• How patient am I when I am called to wait for an answer?
• How do I make the most of and enjoy the discernment-and-waiting process?

I always want
things PERfect

to go off without
a hitch and be,
exactly, the way
I envisioned,
flawless

rarely does
that happen

and then I
crucify myself

but then I have
lost sight of
what perfection
means

wholeness

Visit Darla Kirchner @ http://www.cbizschool.com; attend the Creative Biz School series the next two Mondays @ www.the-arts-alliance.org

Listen to this post:

She was back

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 10:36:00 -0700

Wednesday afternoon I had a date. A date with my mom to go grocery shopping. Not very glamorous.

She's been struggling with cooking as she recovers from a fall and rod inserted from her hip to knee. Generously her church, friends, neighbors and two clubs to which she belongs have been keeping my parents well stocked with food. But the meal train (yes, there is a scheduling website by that name) ends next week.

And she wants to be independent, so I suggested we create a list and shop. Her diet is complicated. I was looking forward to quality time and getting the chance to discover who she is these days after a surgery and two months away.

In recent years, we have discussed that I am her mother and she is Lily – or that we share the other's characteristics. I am quiet and sensitive much like her mother and she is feisty and independent like my youngest. This knowledge helps me understand my daughter and our relationship better and the same for my mother and our complex connection. I think there is no relationship more complicated than mother and daughter. PERIOD.

I left my studio Wednesday afternoon in enough time to drop by the house and say hello to my daughters. Oddly, no one was home, so I texted my husband, who said the girls had walked to McDonald's for a snack and to do their homework. The proximity and free WIFI make it a convenient choice. I swung by and got roped into buying food for my youngest. She's perennially hungry. My oldest was fighting with a slow internet connection to finish a paper. I said I had to leave in 10 minutes to get Mimi (their name for my mom) and take her shopping. They were so engrossed that I felt invisible and mute. Once again, I announced that I had to leave if they wanted a ride. No response, so I waited in the parking lot, texted with no success and left to collect my mother. It was not the way I would have wanted to leave. Things unfinished. Unsaid. Teenagers.

When I arrived at mom's, she was tucked in to her back bedroom watching a movie, waiting. Took awhile to gather her jacket, walker, purse and grocery list and slowly exit from the treacherous garage step and into my Prius. Thankfully, it sits low to the ground and she had no trouble swinging her bad leg into position and getting comfortable. I had anticipated an ordeal.

My dad handed me their handicap-parking permit, which enabled us to park much closer. My mother insisted on walking, not being dropped off. It was interesting to see how people responded to her slowness. Generally, they were kind, except those in cars in a hurry.

We picked out a motorized cart with the gentle help of a store employee. Can I just say I LOVE the people at my local Kroger's? They alway go the extra mile, like the time I experienced a pain meltdown in the frozen-foods aisle when I came for one thing, skipped the basket and buckled under the weight of one-too-many items. A cheery face offered help, left, then quickly returned with a cart. I made sure to tell her manager.

Mom had a blast driving the cart and did really well, which surprised me since she can't drive anymore ... she lost her peripheral vision in a surgery, we think. I reminded her not to nip my heels like Lily always does with the cart. She didn't.

We both had lists. She penned one and I jotted down some things I thought would be easy. They were very similar. We began scanning the aisles and conferring on choices, getting that list under control. It was a very fruitful two hours and I was able to witness how much better my mom is than I had expected. When I couldn't remember that last thing on the list, she did, immediately.

I might have been prepared for this nice surprise if I had paid more attention to what a physical therapist had said in the hospital a few day earlier. A severe episode of vertigo kept here there four days. The PT marveled at her ability to maneuver given her recent surgery. She is religious in completing her strengthening exercises.

And the way she whipped around the store in that cart. Yes, Lily is HER granddaughter. Completely. And my mom is herself.

• How do I handle those I love age?
• How do I handle my own aging?
• Have I learned to ask for help?
• Can I befriend this part of life?
• How does it draw me closer to Spirit?

frail, I feared
walker, slow steps
and all

faded memory and
a somber duty

INSTEAD

the moving
cart became like
a new toy to
be tested and tried

and she passed
with flying colors

the memory had
thrown off the
anesthesia hangover

and she was
BACK

Listen to this post:

Places Spirit runs deepest

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 13:53:00 -0700

Didn't I just write about roller coasters last post? Well, here I am on one again. I want off.

After my hopes for a job were dashed last week, I received an e-mail this week saying I qualified for the final round of a rather robust grant. BIG news, yet also BIG work. And, I have a BIG weekend with two major kids' arts events that I lead.

Did I mention my back is also acting up?

You know, I did get a day off, Thursday, in a strange, unplanned and not-necessarily welcomed manner. I got to catch up with old friends. Friends from my first working days as a full-fledged reporter fresh from college. Friends who knew me when and care for me no matter what.

Only easy-to-find photo of my early newspaper days [with Tad]

Ronda and I bonded easily when I arrived in the newsroom. She worked for another paper in the chain and traveled between offices. She was always easy, generous and funny. Her laugh, infectious. She showed me the ins and outs of local bars around Dayton, especially her favorite, The White Rabbit. It was just a strip-mall bar, but with Ronda there, it seemed magical.

She was nearing her first-year anniversary and making vacation plans. I told her I'd love to go to Florida, but I wasn't due for another few months. She waited.

Ronda, me, Jean and Mary at a newspaper reunion

We took one of our grey Chevettes, though I don't remember which one. Maybe mine. Black vinyl and no AC. That's what was affordable to a moneyless, new graduate. And it got us to Daytona Beach. Our first stop was somewhere in the mountains of Virginia. I am not sure. I wasn't much of a navigator back then, but Ronda taught me all about reading maps. Before being hired as a reporter/photographer, she took baby pictures at department stores. She knew how to get around and ask for what she needed. We pulled into a small motel and, after settling in, discovered our TV didn't work. Ronda went to the manager and sweet talked him into bringing us his from his house! I learned a ton on that trip, such as:
– Betting on a dog called flea-bite because we were so chewed, winning and taking ourselves to a posh dinner in a French restaurant owned by Hugo of Marseilles.
– Learning to make hobo stew of hamburger and vegetables in foil cooked over a grill on the beach.
– Throwing caution to the wind and heading to the world's fair on the way home sans a reservation and sleeping in the back of the Chevette in a camp ground. One of our air mattresses went flat in the night.
– Lucking into buying someone's ticket stubs to get into the fair in Knoxville, TN. Still not sure why it was there.

We have so many memories of weekends, other trips, meeting between her home in Toronto and mine in Cincinnati with our spouses and kids.

The reason I was able to see Ronda this week is because her father died. There's no way I wouldn't go to the funeral, north of Dayton. I arrived at the visitation in enough time to use the restroom and, when I returned, another reporter friend (one I have known since college, who also happened to work with me and Ronda) had just arrived. Ronda couldn't believe we had both come to attend the service.

Because Jean only lives a half-hour away, we are in touch more frequently. When my mother was recovering in rehab after an extensive heart surgery, she visited numerous times to give her healing-touch therapy. That's just the kind of soul Jean is.

We agreed to go to the cemetery, then the reception. I was the last in the car assemblage and lost my way to the American Legion. Somehow, I thought I heard VFW and, when Siri directed me there, found an empty parking lot. Even the funeral home couldn't tell me where to go. Fortunately, I had Jean's cell in my contacts.

I was grateful to find a full parking lot this time, entered and noticed a gathering around the bar. There was Ronda's husband, the lovable Canadian for whom she had left us and the States. He offered to buy me a beer, then we laughed at how cheap, $1.25, it was. "Heck this would be $5 at home." As we shared some conversation, Jean called to see where I was. "On the other side having a beer with Bub." She led me to the reception and a nice spread.

It was really good to touch based with these wonderful, longtime friends, even in their grief. I loved reconnecting with Ronda's family and her high school friends, who also felt like family. These are wonderful, good, honest people. Just like Ronda's dad. Nothing fancy, but real and full of tremendous love for his wife and three daughters. That was so apparent in their tears and grief. Ronda's mother has never lived alone, so the girls quickly drew up a plan where she lives with each of the three for several months the first year before she has to make any decisions.

For several minutes during the visitation, I held a three-month old. Good as gold though she was teething. She's the granddaughter of one of Ronda's longtime school friends. It was so healing to hold this sweet creature in the shadow of death and the open casket. I was stirred at the cemetery, before the skies opened with more tears, as the lone Marine trumpeter wailed taps through his instrument.

I was out all day, living an honest, hard truth among friends and grief. My prayers and blessings are with this family as they move forward without their beloved father and husband and I am grateful to have witnessed such love, grief and grounding. These are genuine people who don't stumble over what matters most in life.

• When do I feel life is a roller coaster?
• How do I get off?
• When was a time it happened serendipitously?
• Who teaches me about love and being grounded?
• What lessons are there in grief?

reeling from
ridiculous
self-made
complications

I was called
away, out

to real
living

the stuff
that matters:
life, death,
love, grief,
family
and friendship

the places
Spirit
runs deepest

Listen to this post:

Something I never needed

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 7 Apr 2015 09:27:00 -0700

Last session, I told my shamanic counselor that I wanted off the roller coaster. He responded that I had been on one all the time, 17 years, that he had known me. That's because you didn't know me before kids or fibromyalgia, I replied.

Well, I got lurched again last week by a job rejection that I cared about more than I had realized. Everything sounded so perfect and it would have tied up so many loose ends. I want a simpler, more abundant life and this seemed like the ticket.

I am also smarting from a friend's offer to put in a good word for me that never materialized; it may have made a difference.

I want to know why God didn't want me to have that job. How did I miss the mark? Was I aiming too low? This was a mid-level position at the salary I started at 20 years ago. Less stress, I hoped. Would I have had the flexibility to manage my fibromyalgia? Would I have come home as exhausted as I had after three hours from the second interview? My spiritual director says to look where the energy is. There was none when I left that interview.

Fortunately, two days after I received the voice mail saying they were going with "another finalist," I had planned an overnight college-visit and trip with my 17-year-old. "Maybe they just liked someone else better," she had said after the bad news. On the drive, she probed deeper, asking why I wanted that job. "Is that what you really want to do?"

"Well, no," I confided. "I really want to be a successful writer, do workshops and creative nurture," I continued. But that's hardly possible my inner critic shouted.

I had gotten that far in another round of interviews for a job I knew wasn't right, when the interviewer said: "You're a good writer. A really good writer."

I seem to need that external affirmation. I am tired of working in isolation, though writing really isn't a team sport. The response to my daughter's question is one of the few times I have verbally articulated my dream. Is this where Spirit is pushing?

Both my mother, sister-in-law, husband and close spiritual friend were more upset than I at the non job offer. It did feel like the world's rejection for awhile. I used to always get the job ... from newspaper ads to which hundreds responded. What's different now?

Of course all of this was transpiring during Lent and the Easter Season, the time of death and resurrection. I read a Max Lucado meditation on Silent Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter, when all of the action happens. Deep things happen in the silence, he'd written, between death and resurrection.

Sitting in worship Sunday, I wondered what I was dying from. I had listened to a snippet of NPR's Fresh Air on the way over and an author was talking about Jewish pessimism, passed on by his parents, products of the Holocaust and Depression. Worry prepares you not to be disappointed, he'd said he learned, then unlearned. I remember reading that worry is a prayer for disaster. Can I let the negativity and worry in my life die, I wondered.

I opened the bulletin to the Centering Down section and was struck with the first passage

... the seed you sow does not come to life unless it has first died; and what you sow is not the body that shall be, but a bare grain, of wheat perhaps or something else; and God gives it the body of his choice, each seed its own particular body ... So it is with the resurrection of the dead: what is sown as a perishable thing is raised imperishable. Sown in humiliation, it is raised in glory, sown in weakness, it is raised in power; sown as a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body." 1 Corinthians 15:35

Falling/pastel on paper

Sown in humiliation, sown in weakness ... that sounds like my current condition. I let all of that sink in and meandered to the place where I was about to die, where I was about to let go, when I was jolted back by the thoughts of leaving things unfinished. I do think something died there on Easter Sunday in that worship.

Pretty soon, a Friend rose and talked about how the Egyptians had measured the weight of a dead person's heart to see how much remorse there had been and how, with Jesus, God taught that the physical body didn't matter in resurrection. She said a lot of other smart things, but what I really remember is her booming voice bellowing "all God want us to know is that he loves us. I love you." I heard God in her speaking to me. Broken and disappointed and struggling, God loves me. I so needed to hear that, really hear it from human lips.

Our minister ended her message quoting the Gnostic Gospel of Philip: "You must resurrect while in this life."

I do feel as if I am resurrecting, that something died and something else is birthing. That, perhaps, I can leave the worldly world and its lure of office jobs behind and move more into the spiritual world of trusting Spirit. My prayer is to trust in that process. To trust Spirit as my guide.

• When does my life seem like a roller coaster?
• How do I examine its cause?
• What spiritual practices support me?
• How do I move more into the spiritual realm?
• Can I resurrect while in this life?

sinking in
is so
satisfying

letting the
layers melt
and remembering

remembering
who I am
my origin

my source

and then I drift
almost as if
asleep

yet awake
deep
down inside

I sink

the lines blur
and I am falling
into release
death

until I shudder
and return

renewed and
missing
something

I never
needed

Listen to this post:

How and where to follow next

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 06:14:00 -0700

How come when I bitch and moan on Facebook about a hot, local topic, I get 40 comments, but when I post a blog with some deep soul secrets, I get one?

I really do have a love/hate relationship with Facebook and it stems from my always-egging desire to go deeper. I seem to want to force Facebook to, sometimes, be something it's not: contemplative. I'll continue nevertheless in the hopes that whomever is suppose to read it will. Just like vocal ministry in Quaker worship. Sometimes you're given a message that makes no sense, but, if you've really discerned that it's yours to give, you do so anyway and detach from any reaction.

This romance I have with depth can drive me crazy. I seek it everywhere, not jut on Sundays in worship. It very well may be why I am so perplexed over the closing of this fabulous school building I have inhabited for almost three years. The e-mail came the week before last that we all had to be out June 1 as the district can no longer afford to keep it running. They always said that's would happen if a solution did not step forward. It hasn't.

One artist was moving his canvases out today and this place feels more abandoned with each loss. And, yet I remain. As my art friend was returning for another load, I was talking to Susan, the custodian who so lovingly cares for the place. Sometimes I feel as if she and I are the only ones who still tend this space. We welcomed the other artist into our conversation,which soon became a tour of Susan showing us the vault, the former gym and pointing out where walls had been opened and closed, the hidden locker room trapped between floors, the high ceilings in some rooms, molding and lone, real slate blackboard.

We crossed over the Maginot Line from the artist's side and into the autistic school, after hours. I can't tell you how many times I have resisted for the sake of protecting the school and observing their boundary. Today, as we all know we will be leaving soon, was different. It seemed a parting rite of some passage.

Today, I could really see the building, its bones and history, the generations who have enlivened its halls, the modernizations and attempts to keep up with the times and demands.

In what I had thought was a dreary cafeteria, pristine sunlight was streaming in. The lower-level bricks were cleanly white-washed and the former gym floor well oiled and heeled. Susan does a very good job over there. She was told months ago not to clean this side ... so I had forgotten how everything can look when polished.

Not many can envision this building polished. They can't look that deep, into its soul. They see the peeling paint, 1970s renovations and the holes left when building icons – such as plaques, murals and the Rookwood fountain – have been removed.

I still see life, not dollar signs I wonder how far the $900,000 cost of tearing it down could go toward upkeep. Unfortunately, this building was written off years ago with no exit plan. That's been the problem. Is locking the doors and closing it up a good solution? I know, I know the school board continues to say it can't afford to keep it open and what a burden it is on taxpayers.

I still can not understand how the city and school district missed the opportunity to look down the road at this building TOGETHER and create a plan that would put the sturdy bricks and mortar to a new use. Of course, I missed that opportunity as well.

It's been a wonderful three years here breathing creative life into a former math room, bathing it in color, gaining inspiration out its windows, watching young artists bloom and small groups go deep the way I like. I really don't know how I will say goodbye.

• Where do I crave depth in my life?
• How does modern culture and technology thwart that?
• Where can I devise a happy medium?
• How can I challenge our throw-away society?
• Where do I find Spirit in the patina of the past?

I entered this
side alone

just me, a
desk, rug,
some books
and a prayer

here to begin
something new,
something unknown
something of Spirit

soon I'll
be here alone
again,
wondering
how and
where to follow
next

Listen to this post:

What must perish

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 10:40:00 -0700

Last week was ONE of the rare weeks I had no time to blog and I am saying no to shoulds! It was one of the most intense, active weeks I have experienced and something had to go. Not the three-hour second interview or its prep and not the two grants due the day after the exhausting, but good, interview. So, it was the blog.

I missed it and things kept percolating all week. It really is my time to process the deep subjects, questions and concerns floating around my psyche. Then there are times I need to rant, tell a story or express gratitude. I am grateful for the outlet and the dear readers who linger and, often, take time to comment. It acknowledges that what I experience is not isolated ... that we all struggle and amble through life the best we can, attempting to remember there is a greater ONE behind the scenes.

I am currently feeling the need to deal with with Lent, my Quaker Meeting's 200th anniversary and the June 1 closing of the school where my studio has been located for three years. And, I'll take them in that order.

Lent never meant much to me growing up, except that the school cafeteria served up soggy fish on Fridays 'cause the Catholic kids couldn't eat meat, they gave up things like gum and candy, wore ashes on their foreheads and our Methodist Church changed its color scheme to purple. Of course, I understood it as a build-up to Easter.

Last year, the practice became much more personal and meaningful to me mainly because of my new spiritual director, an Episcopal, and because it entranced me, intertwining with the change of season, life-death-life and a very specific rhythm and focus. I haven't been following it so deeply this year, yet it calls to me. I understand it as a time of shedding, reducing, turning inward and seeking Spirit. Meanwhile, my exterior life ha gone haywire with busyness and so much uncertainty.

In the midst, my faith community reached an epic milestone culminating one Sunday week before last. We celebrated with guest speakers, visitors, former members, an old-fashioned carry-in meal and then Quaker author Phil Gulley and Quaker singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer.

I loved how Phil Gully just keeps expanding his circles of understanding and inclusiveness. I was moved in "If the Church were Christian" by the idea of universal salvation; that God's love is available to all. PERIOD. That is what I believe. He advocated that if Christianity, all 39,000 factions, is to survive, we must embrace other faiths and religions with the same idea of universal salvation. Christianity must change to survive. He's right. Life is change and anything stagnant dies.

And Carrie Newcomer's low and folky voice carries her deep wisdom into song. I've heard her described as the Prairie Mystic. She truly is. She sang my favorite, about the brown-gray geodes so common near her home in Bloomington, IND. Dull and dead-looking outside, broken open, beautiful crystals are exposed.

Again, life and death from both author and songwriter/singer.

It was a former minister's words, however, that woke me up. Jim Newby, also an author and now at Church of the Savior in Oklahoma City, talked about the challenge of building redemptive community. I immediately sensed his words were a challenge to my 200-year old church not to rest on our laurels and to take up this way of being. Redemptive community, he said, consists of:

• creating a place where we can expose and deal with our pain;

• nurture deep worship for reaching the living Christ;

• encouraging and supporting one another;

• being sure of ourselves and able to count on each other; and

• practicing unconditional love.

We do one of these well and another half well. The rest are untapped sources.

This week in worship, our minister asked what current truth we speak, as Quakers. It occurred to me that truth is only present when the first motion is love, not when we worship early Friends, social activism, the intellect or the Quaker way of doing things. And that Jim Newby's five points are the perfect road map.

Why must I be the negative Nelly, I wondered after delivering that message. At least four people later said they needed to hear that and it was truth. Wouldn't have mattered; I couldn't NOT have said it. Spirit was pushing me.

A few days later, in my "in" box, this devotional from the Henri Nouwen Society arrived:

"There are many forms of poverty: economic poverty, physical poverty, emotional poverty, mental poverty, and spiritual poverty. As long as we relate primarily to each other's wealth, health, stability, intelligence, and soul strength, we cannot develop true community. Community is not a talent show in which we dazzle the world with our combined gifts. Community is the place where our poverty is acknowledged and accepted, not as something we have to learn to cope with as best as we can but as a true source of new life.

Living community in whatever form - family, parish, twelve-step program, or intentional community - challenges us to come together at the place of our poverty, believing that there we can reveal our richness."

And so, when the e-mail came declaring we had to be out of the building by June 1, I was not surprised. While it tears me up to think this place where such beautiful things have happened will, likely, get torn down itself, I understand God may be making way for new things. Better things. Things we can not possibly imagine.

That wisdom would not have surfaced had I attempted to blog last week -- only now, when Spirit prompted.

• What practices help me avoid the shoulds of life?

• What meaning, if any, does Lent have in my life?

• When do I experience times of retreating, waiting, reducing?

• How do I recognize when Spirit is leading toward a death?

• How do I trust during these times?

blogging

last week

was not in the

stars

did I really just

hear one of the

autistic kids

next door

singing

Twinkle

Twinkle?

clearly, thank you

sweet voice, it

was not

and I rested

any attacks

of the shoulds

because this

is the season

of pulling

away from life

and letting what

must perish die

because we

have the

ultimate

example of

new life

right

before us

living

within

Listen to this post:

Lens of creativity, acceptance and love

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 09:35:00 -0700

We're not meant to be perfect. It's NOT in our DNA.

Wow, those words still ring in my heart as much, maybe more, deeply than they did Sunday when they leapt off the lips of our minister. She was offering a follow-up message to one a few Sundays earlier about perfection and, that in Jesus' original tongue of Aramaic, meant whole or complete.

They gave me permission to relax and recognize that so many worldly standards set us up for failure and frustration.

I confess that I had entered worship with something on my heart, the fate of the old school I inhabit, and wasn't completely open. Open enough for those words to get me percolating, letting them sift and filter through my conflict. As the pieces began to assemble, it was quite clear that some are looking for the PERFECT solution to an IMPERFECT problem and wisdom said to "look at the edges, to go outside." That's when I made this drawing:

Truly, this is a matter of getting the energy out of the box and how we're boxed in by perfection and rules. We require a free flow of ideas, not granite and stainless steel, which I'll hit on in a moment.

Perfection is a trap that holds in that which can not be attained or captured. Perfection is suffocating. It:
pre-supposes,
judges,
divides and
is a power play.
When, instead, we need acceptance, which comes from a place of love.
...
The perfect kitchen, according to contemporary tastes, gleams with granite counters and finger-print-free stainless steel applicances. Someone has deemed it the cultural norm to be emulated, repeated, not lived without. It's everywhere: DIY shows, magazine ads, real-estate photos and highlighted in vacation-home rentals.

Simple Paris kitchen

A year ago when I was combing through airbandb.com and other vacation-rental websites, I was astounded that even the teeniest Paris apartment boasted granite and stainless. Why, I wondered? That's the American ideal. I wanted a typical Parisian kitchen, which we found up 76 winding stairs. The kitchen was tucked inside an alcove by the front door with a single sink, tile counter, stovetop, microwave, mini-fridge (white no less) and plates and utensils stacked openly on shelves or hanging. Simple and useful and so, very French. We celebrated some amazing feasts here.

MY kitchen with warm memories

Mine at home has been cobbled with laminate counters in a stone pattern, a matching stainless-and-black fridge and dishwasher a la Craigslist and a 15-year-old smooth top, black stove. The slate floor that reminds me of a creek bed was laid by my brother-in-law, who also custom made a shelved, hinged desk for a funky, not square corner. The table with oak top and original milk-green painted legs was an end-of-show deal at a fairgrounds 20 years ago. The New Orleans jazz painting hung in my childhood home and recently took up residence on a blank kitchen wall, where it has always belonged. The island is a faux-painted cabinet on wheels retrieved from my Quaker Meeting and topped with an Ikea butcher-block slab.

Paris kitchen #2

My kitchen is anything but perfect, a hodge podge of things sentimental and practical. I LOVE my kitchen in all its quirky, imperfect splendor. And, yes, there are some improvements I would like to make, but it seems so crazy to worship an impossible ideal whether in our homes or ourselves.

Tuscan kitchen

I adore my studio in a 1912 building so many recently have said is worthless. Almost 50 autistic kids attend school in one section, hungry parochial-school kids eat lunch in its cafeteria five times a week, pliable gymnasts bounce all over its auditorium/gym and a hand full of artists create from their classroom studios. Does this sound like a lifeless shell?

When we can recognize the implicit imperfection in the world, we can re-imagine and re-purpose building on those flaws and, even accept, things as they are. That's the lens of creativity, acceptance and love.

• How do I see the world's imperfections?
• How do I see my own?
• To what standards of perfection do I hold myself and others?
• How can I rid myself of that false ideal?
• Where can I find acceptance from the place of love?

in a throw-away
society,
a 103-year-old
has little chance
of survival

not even if
it's witnessed
history

housed, fed
and educated
hundreds

served the
community
faithfully

stirred
memories and
friendships

been repurposed
barely tended
and awaiting

acceptance
for what it is,
imperfect
yet functional

can't we see
this as a metaphor
for ourselves

and come
to its rescue?

Listen to this post:

Our wealth is shallow

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 3 Mar 2015 09:10:00 -0800

Compassion has been on my mind; specifically how we express compassion for others that keeps all parties on equal footing. It's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking we know best what the other needs without having lived their experience.

Giving and helping are not necessarily the same as showing compassion and exhibiting social justice. It goes back to the Golden Rule, which is universally embedded in almost all faith traditions, including Christianity. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Not lord it over others, presume to know what they need or desire or move from a place of superiority or inferiority. I believe it means to meet people where they are as we are. To not be afraid to learn about and listen to another who may have a far different background, set of experiences and vocabulary.

Sunday, I attended another church, a local one that burns to partner with me in serving Oakbrook residents. The pastor asked me to speak from the heart about what I do to the congregation. I was warmly greeted as I always have been when I have attended smaller meetings here. Opening with a contemporary band that got us to our feet as lyrics flashed on the large screen was so opposite my typically wandering into worship, quietly taking a seat and settling into silence. As I loosened to the music, I found my body swaying and my lips moving. It really is a wonderful manner in which to worship. It was my hope to meet this congregation where they were and ask the same from them. When it was my turn to speak, I admitted that standing up front with a microphone was not, exactly, easy for an introverted Quaker. They laughed and I relaxed, telling a story straight from the heart after praying that God would give me the words and wisdom. She complied ... at least the pastor said that I expressed what needed to be said.

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After, he talked about serving the poor and earlier in life he was so excited to assist a hungry family that he bought an expensive roast and all of the fixings. When he joyfully delivered them, he noticed packaged foods and no cooking utensils. "I doubt they even had a pot to cook it in." He opened himself and that experience to suggest that we need to work ourselves out of our experience and expectation.

Last summer, when some generous soul provided me with a boatload of fresh garden vegetables, I had the urge to give them to a family of seven that struggles. "Oh, no thanks," the father said. "We don't eat those." That had been my bias, assuming they would clean, cut and cook them.

My greatest lessons in learning how to serve others and meet them where they are have originated with the Neighbor to Neighbor group that I helped start after the 2001 Cincinnati Race Riots and Artsy Fartsy Saturdays, the arts exploration I lead for local, at-risk kids. To really meet people where they are, takes an examination of ourselves, knowing where we are and then patiently listening and getting to know the other. It is about giving of yourself, forming relationships and a bond of trust – rather than racing in with shiny new things, ideas and gadgets that may hinder rather than fix things.

I was really taken with an article in the current issue of Yoga Journal by scholar-teacher-activist Dr. Tessa Hicks Peterson:

"We find our breath, ground ourselves, push past limitations, learn how to live at that edge and find compassion for ourselves. This is the same with social injustice. We can't be afraid to face our ignorance or internal biases, our fears and apathy, our own oppression and pain; we must sit in that discomfort and learn how to find our breath and connect and build compassion for ourselves and for others, including the ones we don't understand, the ones we think are too different from us culturally, racially, religiously – even the ones we hate."

She writes about how the lessons of yoga translate into social action and justice. Sitting in the discomfort really speaks to me. Possibly living with chronic pain puts me there more often than I'd like, but I do have opportunity to reflect on myself, inner workings and motivations. I know myself, fears and most biases; though there is always room for more growth. If we can direct compassion toward ourselves first – just like taking the airline oxygen mask before helping another – we open to being that for others. We're here to accompany and assist one another, erasing as many divisions as possible, not inflict our unexplored biases on each other.

• How do I personally experience compassion?
• What practices aid that?
• What have I learned about myself?
• How can I then apply that to others?
• How does my perspective shift when serving stems from compassion?

in our white,
supreme ways

we think we can
change the world

everybody, we
tell ourselves
benefits from
our experience,
culture and
wisdom

we know it all
we've done it all

we are wealthy,
we tell ourselves
over and over
and over

until we believe
it is the root
of all

and from this
warped root
we approach others
benevolently

as if they everything
to gain and
nothing to lose

how very
wrong we are

for our wealth
is shallow, selfish
and lacking wisdom

Listen to this post:

Moving ego off the stage

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 09:43:00 -0800

Perspective is EVERYTHING and God gives us a dose of it every once in awhile to humble us and call our attention to what really matters.

The past two weeks have embroiled me in working to save our neighborhood school. It's been an incredible journey and one in which I could see Spirit at work. That hit a snag Sunday when I opened my studio to discuss possibilities and one loud group took center stage announcing that the only way to go is to support the efforts of two children to tear the building down and create a park. They aim to raise $1 million. The park idea is lovely, but I don't believe the expensive tear-down is. At least, I desire to explore ALL of the options first. The park group believes, second hand, that they have been exhausted. But I know artists imagine things in a completely different and transformative way. My shamanic counselor has taught me a solution is never either/or (save or tear down), but a "whole rainbow of color choices."

After a three-hour meeting Sunday, I returned home exhausted and with anxiety about all that we had just accomplished. That lingered through the wee hours, even though I kept telling myself to let God handle it. I was buoyed yesterday by two conversations with out-of-the-box thinkers with a genuine concern for the community.

One of those was late in the day and I arrived home late and ready to unwind. I barely had my boots off when I heard a gusty knock at the door ... one that demanded to be answered. I complied and lit up to see two of my Artsy Fartsy girls ... two who have stuck with me three years. They had been shopping out in the cold for four hours -- one only dressed in a sweatshirt -- and wanted to warm up and ask for a ride home. I gave one a clean pair of dry socks and we sat in the living room chatting about their after-Valentine's Day bargains. One got a text that it was time to be home. As I led them through the kitchen, they were enticed by the smell of the cooking meatloaf. I wished it had been ready then and I could have fed them. Instead, I ferried them back to one of the stores where they had forgotten a package. "If he doesn't give it back to me, something's gonna go down," one crowed. "How about I go in with you, just in case." "Good idea," she agreed. "Now, don't embarrass me or I'll act like I don't know you," I teased.

We successfully retrieved her bag and I drove them to warm homes. Their visit and the ease of our relationship dispelled any coldness in me from the weather and the fate of the building. The art I make in the building is about the kids, not where we do it. I told them the project and its tear-down were rejected and they were excited. "Where will have Artsy Fartsy if not there?" they both chimed in. "We have lots of temporary offers, but I am not worried about it. We'll figure it out."

I slept incredibly well and even braved the extreme cold to do laps in an 84° pool. I sailed into the studio for a full day of writing when the phone rang. My mom had tripped last night, broken her hip and they were in a hospital awaiting surgery.

OMG. Could a building or any petty conflicts about it come before her?

People, God says pretty clearly, come first. Even before my Do-Gooder reflex and how I hope things could be in my community.

I needed the reminder – thank you, Wise One.

• How do I let myself get carried away?

• When do I need to be jolted out of my ego-centered world?
• How does God give me perspective?
• What spiritual practice can also grant me the larger view?
• What is my prayer for the wisdom of perspective?

Dear One,

Whom I love with
all of my heart

Who knows me
better than I can
ever pretend

Please continue
to guide me
even when I resist

When ego is
front and center

Remind me
what matters
most

Listen to this post:

Spirit stamped all over

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 11:26:00 -0800

I don't consider myself any kind of evangelist even if I do write about matters of the spirit. However, I am still dancing because Spirit made the impossible possible. And I must publicly share my gratitude.

Even just days ago as I sat down at this computer to write, I was forlorn with the impending and seemingly certain fate of this wonderfully blessed space. The school district finally had a buyer, who dreamed up a plan that had sailed through planning-commission and board-of-zoning-appeals approvals. I had attempted to test the waters of public support for the building for months. Many people waxed nostalgic and wanted to keep it, but few were committed to action.

In this case, money was speaking.

I was repeatedly asked where I would move. I had no real idea. Certainly, there were kind offers for temporary space, but no permanent home, Uncharacteristically, I had no plan and I was oddly at peace. All I knew was to stay here as lonely and isolated as it seemed. Stay and be a beacon of light showing the transformation that can and does happen right here in this old building. I have witnessed wily children ripen into trusted mentors, misbehavior channel to creativity, marginalization become confidence, a bland peeling classroom morph into a bright refuge, bitter enemies bond, artists with gifts offer them generously, volunteers with big hearts stretch them larger and children asked to grow up too quickly soften, relax and feel safe. HERE.

Then, suddenly, I wasn't one of the few. Neighbors joined neighbors and the energy spread like wildfire. And I knew it was time to invite people in. They created their own energy, renewing what I was beginning to feel once again, within these walls.

Several weeks ago I trolled the halls looking for peace and quiet only to turn up abandoned bulbs peaking out of the soil. Now tended, the 18-inch stalks are leaning and lengthen every day. Then, I recognized it as a sign of life. My spiritual director had advised me that in finding the energy, I would find guidance because that is where God resides. I knew She was telling me something with the blooms. Don't give up hope, what you think may be dead is not.

In dizzying days of meetings, e-mails, letters, petitions, phone calls, Facebook chats, yard-sign distribution and prayer I was energyzed. People adored the studio, the work we do here and the fact the building was in better shape than some would admit. These concerned residents brought more and new energy with them. It was the energy of being united and while some may not view it as spiritual, I knew its source.

Each of us added a piece and brought more away as our gatherings broke apart. Most of this was unbidden. I only see it now. I kept tending and watching the paperwhites. They grew as the momentum did. I pointed them out to the group. Which either made me seem wise or nuts.

All was riding on Tuesday night's council meeting when the body would make the final decision. A denial required five of seven votes. City staff reversed its recommendation after studying the impact on emergency services. That was hopeful and paralleled the paperwhite's rise. Opposition signs sprung up in 500 yards across town. Neighbors from all ends collaborated. Many pitched in legal fees to hire an attorney to write a letter. I was not one of them, believing in what I saw happening. I also didn't agree that we needed legal representation before our elected representatives. In one last e-mail before the vote, that's exactly what I told council members. That I trusted them and the system. It was Spirit that I really trusted.

I raced from a downtown grant presentation to get to the council meeting, where several neighbors and new friends had a seat waiting. The swell of energy and tension could have been cut. The city manager read the new position and the developer was given time to respond. He began by reintroducing himself because "most people have it all wrong, I am an investor in your community .... I gave money ... for your rained-out parade." I was sad at his defensiveness and separation. He called the fire chief's figures "arbitrary and capricious."

I can not imagine how devastating the reversal must have been for him. He'd spent months, money and time crafting a lucrative plan. What he'd neglected to do was really listen to those of us looking for something with a community focus. He wrote us off. He wrote me off as an artist who "contributes nothing" to the building and the welcome letter I sent him with grant suggestions as "nothing I can take to the bank." He had the audacity to tell me those things in my studio. Yet, somehow that negative energy dissipated. And I haven't been angry with him, just understand that our goals are so divergent.

After his allotment, it was time for council members to explain how they would be voting. Hallelujah. Not just a vote, but an explanation.

The mayor began, armed with discrepancies, homework and a litany of reasons she was rejecting the plan. My side of the room erupted with applause and hope. When the second council person said no, we held our breath and signed with relief. In quick succession, the third and the fourth, the fifth and the sixth voted with their peers and against the proposal. The final voice dissented. Six-to-one the development was denied.

I had prayed up and down the halls of the building for something like this. All of the prayer warriors were on it. I could hardly believe my eyes and ears, but in my heart I knew God had been at work. During a break after the vote, staffers, elected officials and residents united in a way I have never experienced. We were ONE.

We meet again Sunday for strategy and next steps. Although the sale of the land from the school district to the developer was contingent on the zoning approval, the school board president says it's still intact.

Now I pray for the developer and total unity. Join me if you would. Amazing things do happen. Thank God.

• How have I experienced God at work?
• When was a hopeless situation reversed?
• How long before I was aware of Spirit's hand in it?
• When have I experienced utter unity?
• How do I pray for more?

hibernating
since early
last spring

anyone
would have
thought them
dead

just like
the fate
of this
old building

yet,
isolated
in the dark
and secret
places

forces
were working

bringing
new life
and energy

with
Spirit
stamped
all over

Listen to this post:

Working for [comm]unity

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 11:39:00 -0800

Tonight may be a loaded night. Full of emotion, intensity and, hopefully, not heartbreak. I am trying to hold it all prayerfully and trust all will be well.

Of course, I am referring to the city council decision on a proposed development for my beloved Milford Main School. It's been such an awe-inspiring couple of weeks and I simply could not have imagined that so many people could rally together in such a community-minded way.

My neighbors, whom I never knew before, Joe and Janet, began knocking on doors when they found few others attending hearings and meetings while the proposed development seemed to sail through city channels.

I attended the first public hearing in front of the planning commission, kept up on the minutes of the second one and also when the city board of zoning appeals approved a variance in density for the property. I made sure to attend the public hearing happening before city council. I stayed for three-and-a-half hours, while the night owls remained until it ended about 1:20 a.m. About 40 people spoke after city staff, the developer and his experts made their case over 90 minutes. People's words moved me. People from all over Milford and all walks of life. One unrepresented group, children, were eloquently captured in one artist's words.

It was at the steps to the city building I encountered a new group, STOP Milford on Main, that had emerged with a terrific logo, t-shirts, petitions and, soon, yard signs. One of them started a Facebook page with, regular and relevant posts and spot-on info-graphics. A neighbor on the other side of town jumped in. Carl was involved about a dozen years ago when a developer wanted to plant houses in a flood plain on some very pristine, natural land. A small group organized, hired an attorney and with much effort, founded ValleyView, now a 150-acre nature preserve and education center, in South Milford. After the tense hearing before council, he contacted me about gathering those opposed to what the developer calls Milford on Main. We both suspected there were other, small groups and interested individuals out there that we wanted to collect.

I offered my studio in Milford Main as a meeting space. After all, we were focused on Main; plus, I felt it was something I could do and I love showing off the place. Many people wander in and are surprised at the shape its in: better than they had anticipated. Enough inspectors through the place have hinted that the oldest section, mine built in 1912, is the soundest and that any asbestos is properly abated. It is only a problem when exposed such as during demolition. While it is true that renovations over the years have stripped some of the original charm, there's still plenty in the large classrooms with chalkboards that stretch down entire walls. In one meeting, the developer said there was no character or chalkboards left. He's visited me twice and, apparently, hadn't noticed.

Carl had said he'd like me in the mix as an example of what can continue to happen in Milford Main. This is a reason I have kept Artsy Fartsy at Main through inspections, wall-busting and weeks of dust as the Rookwood fountain was removed. Programs like Artsy Fartsy that serve the community belong here. I dislike he idea that the school for kids on the autism spectrum will leave. They have been so happy here.

So 20-something turned out for our first meeting at Main and we had a healthy discussion and managed some organizing. I am eternally grateful to the neighbors who braved cold weather and closed doors to collect hundreds of signatures. Their take was that so many were in the dark and, once informed, not in favor of the massive development.

Like wildfire, this energy has spread. It gives me hope and courage that our elected representatives will do their job. The best thing to come out of all of this is meeting more good people who happen to be my neighbors.

• When has something dire brought people together?
* What are examples of when even just one person has made a difference?
• What about democracy in action inspires me?
• How do I find freedom of speech sacred?
• How can I remain Spirit-led in trying experiences?

I had all but
lost hope

turning the key
in the studio door
as often as I
could get there

praying over
the room and
down the halls

hosting my
Artsy Fartsy kids
with as much energy
as we could muster

and spraying
that all over
the building

and, just as the
forgotten paperwhites
bloomed from
cracked dirt and complete
disregard

life sprung into
action

neighbors
linked arms

and
together

worked for
the community

for
unity

Compassion button

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 09:19:00 -0800

My heart melted yesterday, but only after it was jolted by the blaring fire alarm just outside my studio door. I neither heard nor saw anything else, so grabbed my coat, phone and purse and headed outside. All was quiet. Hum, I thought, drill or real?

A few minutes later, the teachers, aids and students inside the school for those on the autism spectrum came filing out. Orderly. Not in a panic as I would have expected the alarm to trigger. Several had their ears covered. It had been so suspiciously silent most of the day that I had wondered if they were out of school. I have grown accustomed to, even fond of, the shirks, groans, singing and cries. That is once I got past the fact they were not expressions of pain, just expressions of living inside oneself.

As they streamed out, tagging onto each other and being pushed in wheel chairs, I noticed the extreme level of need some of these children live with. A kind teacher was gently bundling her charge up in a fleece blanket. All I could detect was the tassel of ginger hair trailing out of the soft, patterned volcano, like lava. I helped tuck her in a bit more snugly, feeling guilty that I'd had no one to tend but myself and time to grab my warm jacket. "She was already not feeling well today," her teacher remarked. She wasn't the only one struggling. All of them were freezing, so they began to huddle at the faraway fence, frozen as the two fire tricks and police cruiser screeched by. Finally a walkie-talkie revealed the coast was clear and the disrupted, red-cheeked kids and young adults were moved back inside. I ran ahead and held the door open, the VERY least I could do.

I typically meet some of the more able-bodied students during their recesses and walks or when they line up for the busses. We'll share a snippet of conversation or smiles. I had not understood that some are much less mobile and non-communicative. Wow. This school does an even more amazing job than I had previously credited it or its staff. Busy door holding, I looked up to see a teen girl in some sort of torso brace. Not uncomfortable, just necessary. I don't have a clue as to her issues or what job her paraphernalia performed. A wave of grief hit in a modicum of feeling for what her parents must experience. It wasn't pity, more a shred of empathy for her parents. I know how difficult is it to raise teenagers with just their normal amount of drama and hormones. What if I struggled to really communicate with them – past our petty control arguments and family gripes?

I am ever more grateful for the school just beyond the double doors for their care, nurturing and education of those with greater needs in our society. How incredible parents have this resource.
...

Last night, my book club discussed Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, a book so poetically and lushly written with a haunting story that touched my core ... as no other has since I read Annie Dillard. The story of blurred lines, misshapen love and dysfunctional familial patterns that connect generations was profoundly sad, yet I wanted to read on. The twins the novel focuses on gripped my heart much as the children during the false fire alarm did.

Rahel and Estha are robbed of genuine love (we had some debate about whether their mother was a good one and concluded, given her history, she managed the best she could) but find a twisted version between themselves. Your heart aches because unconditional love is foreign to them. You even grieve for them.

And, at the same time, you selfishly become more grateful for your own world.

Mostly, the fictional and real children prove that even in terrible circumstance, there is life. It may not look like the norm, but there is that of God in each one of them. And you begin to believe that God draws them even closer.

• What breaks my heart?
• How do I let down defenses to let that happen?
• How is breaking allowing something to enter?
• What builds my compassion?
• How do I take that out into the world?

it usually
strikes in
the same place

not that
I've ever
really
located it
before

right at my
breastbone
in the middle
of my upper
chest
in the
hollow

and I have
to remind myself
to breathe
through

that it hurts,
but it is
also opening me

my
compassion
button

Listen to this post:

Creator not a destroyer

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Fri, 6 Feb 2015 09:05:00 -0800

The debate today is which topic would be most meaningful to write about:
A) Boundaries and how I must keep them as I open my studio tonight to what could be some negative energy. Would be a good follow up to the last post on vulnerability.
B) How in certain, odd moments, Quakerism resonated so deeply within me that I think I was always Quaker.
C) The injustices and misinformation I witnessed attending a public hearing on the building I occupy with my studio.
D) All of the above.

Think I am settling on D because I can't seem to unbundle any of these threads.

Of course the place they connect is within me and my experiences this week. And they also focus on the fate of a place very near and dear to me: Milford Main School, where Artsy Fartsy was birthed and flourishes. I have been following the fate of this building for years, but most especially since I moved in the spring of 2012. It was always my understanding that is would not be a permanent home as the district was attempting to, somehow, disassociate from it.

For months, I have attempted to gauge the interest and energy level of the community in rescuing the building, but no one seemed interested. A group for preservation formed, but petered out. There's been a lot of talk and fond memories of Main, but no one has put their money where their mouth is until recently. A developer was the sole offer to the school district for the building. Many others passed it over. His plan is intense: 92 apartments aimed at seniors, wiping out so much of the space the public has come to rely on as theirs.

His plan has passed frighteningly fast through city re-zoning channels. Frighteningly. And it all came to a head Tuesday evening in a six-plus hour public hearing. I had thought this building remaining was a dead issue, until Tuesday. Something like 40:3 spoke in opposition to the plan, which dismantles the school. Maybe there is hope, I sang all the way home.

Which is why I agreed to host a meeting tonight in my safe space to see where the energy is flowing. However, some are only bent on stopping the current project, nothing more. And stopping it at almost any means. My view is that if the city could see a new vision, they may not feel so compelled and desperate to say yes to what's on the table. I am a creator, not a destroyer.

Unfortunately we have arrived in this space because of years of non-action and no one stepping up for the community. The district has not wanted the building in ages and the city, it turns out we learned Tuesday night, actually declined the district's free offer of it. Why was it quiet and no public discourse? Who made that decision for us?

We also learned that the district is tearing down two other schools, not historical like Main, giving the property on which one sits to the neighboring township for $1 and taxpayers will foot 73% of those tear-down costs. What if we'd rather those funds go to preserve Main? No one asked the public.

The public hearing was run more like a trial and unlike any I have ever experienced, which is pretty many with my long tenure as a local-government reporter. The city attorney facilitated the meeting insisting that everything be clear for "The Record" should this go to trial. Anyone who wished to speak had to be sworn in.

Did I just hear that, sworn in? I asked myself. Good thing I had written two letters and had not planned on speaking, because I would not have taken the oath. Quakers believe your word should always be impeccable, so there is no need to swear. I have asked the city attorney about that, but not yet received a reply. I also stood alone not saying the pledge of allegiance in that gathering. I have always thought it intolerable to pledge allegiance to a thing. Yes, the things represents our government, but that is not what rules my life. Of course I am law-abiding and respect and value our democratic process, which was in full form Tuesday evening. It wasn't until I became Quaker that I had a reason for that gut feeling. Quakers don't pledge to anything or one but God, otherwise it puts that person or thing above God in their view. Mine, too.

The developer and his expensive entourage had first crack at the public hearing and they all played to the council seated ahead of them on a platform above the audience. [Our Quaker Meeting disassembled its low-rise platform years ago so as not to place anyone at a higher level than another.] It was an hour and 45 minutes into the meeting before the public got its turn. The self-appointed time keeper, the attorney, said they had only taken 38 minutes. Besides not believing his accuracy, I heard almost a warning in those words, as if residents should shush themselves. They were limited to 2 minutes each, but that was never enforced.

After three-and-a-half hours, I left hearing nothing new in the last hour. I applaud the council members and residents that stayed until the bitter end, 1:15 a.m. I have never witnessed a public hearing lasting that long. Residents had a lot to say, perhaps more than one hearing can accommodate.

The fancy money spoke fancy and cited pedigrees. The middle-class residents spoke from the heart, some more eloquently than others, some very emotional and others twisting bits of truth. I grew somewhat uncomfortable with where I was sitting as a group hysteria formed: people cheering others on and jeering at comments with which they disagreed. At times, it felt more like a sporting event.

I merely listened.

So, what to DO with all of this? Extend the invitation, ask respect for the safety of the space, pray all day in the space and let Spirit do the rest.

• How do I keep healthy boundaries?
• How can I get sucked into others energy?
• Are there spiritual practices to keep me on track?
• How do I live with integrity?
• How do I let Spirit in on all aspects of my life?

a quiet
writing
day
eroded

by obnoxious
drilling
outside

seeping
through
the windows

into my
brain and
around
my heart

like a
lethal vine

drilling
that preceded
construction

as if it
were a
done
deal

when
it wasn't

agitated,
I wandered
to the
most silent
room

at the
interior

where,
by no
accident,

I discovered
the forgotten
bulbs
in parched,
cracked soil

sending up
green shoots

there is life
yet
in this
old building

Listen to this post:

Vulnerability and the One That I Am

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 3 Feb 2015 09:23:00 -0800

My heart hurts for a friend, who opened her heart to another and the other chose to walk away. She gave completely, he took completely, then left. Left, I suspect, because, in his woundedness, he didn't know what to do with this precious gift. He may not have recognized it. My prayer is that she not take this upon herself or vow never to open again.

Vulnerability is difficult, even in the safest circumstance.

In our culture, we layer so many filters on top of our True Selves that we forget who we are, how we are. Much of the burden is the armor of our woundings, also our human need to feel in charge. Visually, I think of Adam and Eve in Paradise, naked, unburdened, content. That is how we are meant to be. Not clothed and hiding in darkness.

I remember in junior high all of the snickering when we watched films from a couple who traversed Africa. We were embarrassed by the nakedness. Even that young. The blatant, unassuming nakedness of Africans going about daily business. Perhaps we yearned for that same freedom.

Wouldn't it be simply energzing to strip ourselves and walk around with nothing to hide? It takes impossible amounts of energy to cloak our True Selves. Behind masks, material things, feelings, emotions, experiences, expectations, failures, mistakes, attitudes, stereotypes, roles and anything else we can latch onto.

Offering/pastel & paint on paper

One of the most courageous people I know has gone to great lengths to be who he really is, who he has always known he is. Assigned the wrong sex at birth, he eventually came to terms with his True Self thanks to a wise therapist and family support. He has taken extreme, but honest, measures to become more of who he is. He is a guiding light of exposing himself, being vulnerable.

That's one of the greatest lessons I desire to each my daughters: Be who you are! Not who I want you to be, who you think I want you to be or who anyone else feels you should be. With two teens, I observe them struggle to work this out. They're not even sure. Why should they be? Neither am I about myself.

Except I know for fact that that's all God really wants of us: to be our Truest Self. Vulnerability is one of the hardest destinations on the spiritual path, but the best introduction is to begin in prayer. In that quiet silence, I can remember who I am and, layer by layer, undress and give my naked self over. When I am really still, I unwrap my heart and offer it to God. That's all she wants from us.

Yet, complex as we humans are, we have to muck it up, draw it out and make it darn near impossible. And so often, when we give in that way to another person, we are wounded. Or, at least, we see it that way. Usually, it has nothing to do with ourselves, our True Selves, but the other, who can not accept or reciprocate.

When my girls were babies, I loved taking a bath with them, then holding them skin to skin, naked to naked. That's exactly how Spirit likes us, naked to naked. Nothing between.

How amazing is that when we can also do that with another human? And, if we are burned, we have to do it again and again. Otherwise we lose who we truly are.

• When am I most vulnerable?
• How have I experienced acceptance of that?
• When was I wounded as a result?
• Have I let that fester or air out and heal?
• When am I naked to naked with Spirit?

so heavy
the accumulation

years
of waxy buildup

molten together
in an awful
swampy color

and the stripping
painful

until the
lightness is
tangible

stirring
the
remembering

awakening

the one
that
I am

Listen to this post:

The giver of music

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 11:07:00 -0800

Just before before jumping into the shower, I set my phone to the Pandora bossa nova station, letting the cool rhythms overtake my psyche and body. I want my life to be a samba, I thought.

With that on my lips, I arrived in worship, a bit late, lingering too long to the slower rhythm of the music. Our minister's message was about how things get in our way, crowding out God.

I grew up with this album, allowing it to transport me somewhere special

I want my life to be a samba, I heard again, then shared in worship.

I want my life to be a samba. Smooth, rich, full of grace and a deep contentment impervious to the giddiness of individual events and momentary accumulation of stuff.

Let me flow and glide by guidance, I silently asked Spirit.

I had spotted a wonderful young neighbor friend in our midst that morning. Seeing her draped in a colorful pashmina, she looked as if she'd always worshipped with us. "I wanted quiet this morning," she confessed. We retreated to fellowship afterward, sharing coffee, snacks and conversation with a table of women. It was easy and full of grace.

I slid on over for my free Starbucks and a few minutes of reading and initiating a marketing plan for my husband. I didn't have to do it now, but I wanted to. So many wonderful ideas floating around, I risked losing them if not captured in the moment. When they were sufficiently lassoed into the Word file, I unplugged my laptop, noticing it was exactly time to leave for my appointment with my spiritual director.

We hadn't met since June and I had felt the need for balanced advice on discerning my current direction in life. At a crossroads with my non-profit work, the need for helping fund my daughters' college, a second job interview and discovering, then applying for a dream job, I sought guidance. My own faith community is too close and tied to my ministry and the new minister in my life has already said he will do whatever it takes to keep encouraging me in my ministry. "You shine here and it's your passion," he has said.

I needed that affirmation and what he says is true. Yet not ALL parts of the ministry are my passion, particularly right now as the building I inhabit is closer to abandonment and demolition and with that, a gloomy shadow, as well as the arduousness of forming a legal non-profit that overwhelms me to the point I have been dragging me feet for months.

So I e-mailed Mary and she said she could see me Sunday afternoon. Perfect timing.

I arrived on the dot of 2:30 and, while she heated water for tea, fingered the wonderful assortment of books on her shelves. Many I have or would want to have. She arrived with steaming cups, we sat and I spilled my heart. My biggest concern is that I follow what God wants for me. Her response, "Well, then, follow the energy. Pay attention to what gives you energy and what robs you." She recommended the Ignatian Examen, also a traditional Quaker practice of reflecting each evening on where God was visible during the day, where there was grace and where there wasn't.

How could she know I was looking for a tool? I hadn't, even. We spoke more and I blurted out things not yet articulated: fears, joys, concerns, dreams, goals, threats. All of it.

She noted my enthusiasm for a job posting. "But I've just applied and don't even have an interview," I protested. She was noticing the energy around the idea of the job. "Pay attention," she prodded.

In 60 minutes, I had poured everything possible out, been heard, affirmed and given an exercise to help me identify the energy.

"I am so very sorry to have bothered you on a Sunday," I said on the way out her door. "Absolutely now worries," she gently commanded, "Sunday is MY work day."

We agreed to touch base in a month and I was deliciously grateful for the sound advice and the (re) discovery of a tool to help me decipher where the energy is in my life.

I ambled home to a family re-assembling from multiple destinations. I received a glimpse of gratitude, recognizing there won't be too many more re-gathering Sundays as my high schoolers begin to make their own paths and ways in life. Today had been seamless and smooth. All part of the samba.

Sunday is my husband's dinner duty, so I had time to reflect on my spiritual-direction session and begin this blog. After dinner, I sank into a warm couch with my oldest for an episode of Downton Abbey, then tiptoed off to bed and a rare, sound sleep dreaming of the Girl from Ipanema and ...

"When she walks, she's like a samba
That swings so cool and sways so gently"

• When is my life like a samba?
• What makes it so?
• What is my desired rhythm?
• How is it also Spirit's rhythm?
• Where do I see the grace and energy in my life?

music is
the tonic
of change

its rhythm
draws in
the soul,

reshapes
whatever is
troubling

lifts spirits
into the
stratosphere

where the
giver of music
resides

Listen to this post:

A sorry lesson

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 11:17:00 -0800

I don't like to get political in this space, but I just have to say that I am disappointed by local government. My school district and my city. Certainly, they have done some very good things. But when it comes to a prime and public piece of real estate, they have failed miserably.

And yet, maybe the public has a role here as well. We ALL have been terrible stewards of the Milford Main School. All talking about how important is it, but doing little to change anything. Yes, there was
an advisory committee that trumpets how it

made the recommendation some years ago for the district to divest itself of the building and even some ideas on repurposing it. However, the district always seemed clear it was not their job to re-purpose and has limped along thanks to tenants who discovered the charming, if less than perfect, and reasonably priced space. We're here to educate, they sing, while constructing new elementaries and upgrading other buildings. They have an operations manager.

For years, I have heard the city was offered the building and declined, yet council has voted to purchase and raze a downtown gas station for parking and a building at the Little Miami Trail head.

And the public LOVES the building, yet any recent effort to do anything with it has been invisible. Years of talk and inaction bring us to where we are now: at the knees of a developer who insists on a density higher than typically allowed, and a new zoning. Why the zoning variance for the higher density was approved, 3-2, before the actual zone change (from institutional to multi-family) seems so backward and reactionary to me. We have a city admitting they are deciding development issues on a case-by-case basis, abandoning and having not renewed a 1997 land-use plan in which the community participated.

I sat through three-plus hours of an initial public hearing in which the clear majority of speakers, yes mainly affected residents, objected to the density and massiveness of the proposed 92-apartment structure for seniors. I understand there was standing-room only at the last hearing and yet the project was approved.

Now on to city council Feb. 3

The developer has gone to great lengths to find a suitable project that meets a need, makes money, complements his Riverwalk development and is palatable enough to get approved. He has said he desires the highest and best use. I say the city ought to be looking for the best use. This has been public property after all to which many children have had access for running around at recess, playing in the gaga pit, tossing some baskets, riding bikes and skateboards. Not to mention church and event parking. That will be reduced to a 4,000 square-foot triangle at the five points intersection and 190 parking spaces to be shared by 92 one-to-three bedroom units and the churches.

The two affected churches have written letters of support of the project to the city. I was somewhat surprised. The developer approached me, too, and I politely declined. It's a lovely project, but I am not sure this is the best plan for this site.

If things progress surprisingly swiftly as they have and the measure moves through council so easily, we'll have to accept this major change in our neighborhood. I certainly hope it fills a need, is successful and accommodates seniors, otherwise it will be marketed to whomever can afford the $1200-$1500 monthly rent.

I hope we learn the lesson of what happens when we are reactive, not proactive here. Had we been proactive, there would be a new plan designating a very studied and beneficial use for the land that benefits all. And, if a developer came along and deviated, s/he could be denied. Better yet, maybe we'd be planning a community center funded by a bond issue, grants and private donations that we could all enjoy.

It's not too late for other properties such as the former Millcroft Inn and vulnerable, historic landmarks.

Sadly, even though 46 students trudge in every weekday with their teachers, aides, principal and staff, the St. Andrews kids storm in lunch and the hand full of artists still make art, Main has lost it's shine. The 1912 portion of the building I occupy is never cleaned unless I do it, all sorts of inspectors and workmen stomp in leaving their trash, dirty footprints, disturbing me by helping themselves to my studio and poking holes in walls looking for asbestos, leaving swirls of dust and debris. And no one else cares.

That's a sorry lesson to convey to Artsy Fartsy kids: that no one else cares about the space that has been sacred for us. They already typically feel as if no one cares. On the upside, it's not about the location, our efforts and energy will thrive other places.

If you have an opinion, write city council or attend the Feb. 3 meeting when it will be discussed.

Listen to this post:

Perspective of God's vision

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 11:11:00 -0800

January was supposed to be my month "off," a respite from the previous, dizzying year and holiday season. It began on a relaxing note with a re-grouping retreat and, listening to collective widom, unscheduling the January session of Artsy Fartsy. Of course, I didn't feel as if I could completely abandon the kids, so I prepared, with the help of my oldest, art kits with supplies and activities, then sauntered up to their complex in almost sub-zero weather with my youngest to leave them at each door.

When I'd met with a potential Artsy Fartsy board member at the end of the year, he'd wondered out loud why I was taking January off. "This is when you should be planning," he mentioned supportively. Well, yes, that was what I intended. Taking time off from the everyday busyness to look at the BIG picture and spend reflective, prayerful time seeking God's direction. He – the man, not God – suggested developing a business plan and accompanying financials. Did I mention I also had two grants due?

When I thought I'd take off the month, I had not envisioned writing a deep and truthful letter to the city planning commission about the proposed re-zoning for Milford Main. That took effort and energy, but I felt as if God was pleased. Nor the workmen who kept entering my studio, then knocking out walls searching for asbestos. They threatened the safety and security of my space. I don't know how easily that can be restored.

Least of all, I had not expected the call for a job interview as a PR/media strategist. I thought, what the heck, why not? The call came Monday and they wanted me Wednesday. I had planned no work for Tuesday, my birthday. Fortunately, my resume was together, but work samples were not. Yet, I also tempered my efforts with the thought that this was just a conversation.

Indeed, it was a good one. Maybe too good. I loved the synergy of the workplace, the type of work this organization does and the complexity of the job. I could easily imagine working under this boss and in this small group within the larger body. I felt like we clicked. That is, if I actually wanted the job. Do I want it or want to be wanted?

I'd prayed to God earlier to make this easy. She complied, though I am not sure she heard the rest of my pleas: "Make the path clear." EXCEPT ...

Tuesday, I'd raced through my morning swim, attempting to get done in time to take my daughter to school. All night long I struggled with shoulder-blade pain ... and into the next day. Because I had the interview, I stretched the shoulder, applied an Amish-cream remedy, then popped Ibuprofen. It was enough to get me through the interview. Wednesday evening it began to really bother me and there was no way to get comfortable in bed.

Thursday's saving grace was a previously scheduled massage. As I struggled with the pain (interesting how one single spot can affect so much of your body and movement), I began to wonder if this was God being clear: you can't handle a full-time job right now.

During the interview, I certainly felt that I could. In the aftermath, I reconsidered. My massage therapist/shaman/pastoral counselor sent me from his table to the chiropractor with a dis-aligned rib. Ouch. Aggressive swimming. During our talk (we do that, then get into the body work), he suggested that I had plenty of clarity. "You seem to understand and see the whole picture," he said. "What you need is guidance." That stopped me. He was right; I had plenty of clarity – perhaps too much.

I don't believe God causes pain for any reason, including in order for us to shift direction. I am aware of some of its causes in my case, but it sure seems to get in the way. Mostly the way of living a regular, normal life.

Why do I seem to covet that at times? Because it seems easier going with the flow. Swimming upstream is hard work (ask my ribs). A story I just read and I movie I treated myself to resonated deeply with me about being who you are.

The story of the Fourth Wiseman was all about his journey to find the baby Jesus based on the Truth he got from a particular star. He missed the opportunity to meet with with the other three when he stopped to nurse a sick Jew along the way. He kept stumbling into needy people all through his travels, finally giving away the last treasure he had carried for when he met Jesus. The Wiseman arrived in Jerusalem just as the earth was quaking and Jesus was dying. He tumbled and hit his head, dying in the arms of a woman he'd rescued from slavery with a precious pearl. The woman overheard a conversation between the man and a strangely sweet voice. The man was saying how he had looked and looked for Jesus, only to just miss him. The voice replied he had seen Jesus in every face of every person he had helped.

Though VERY different, the story of genius mathematician Alan Turing is also of one committed to another path. Turing's honesty brought him undue suffering for being truthful about who he was (a homosexual living in England when it was against the law) to the point of ending his own life. While alive, he would never know what he began: the fields of computer science and morphogenesis, mathematically revealing how cells differentiate to form shape and attributes such as stripes or spots.

Right now, I see several paths personally. Spirit, please help me chose the one that brings me closest to you.

• What measure do I take to step back from life and seek God's input?
• When do I take a respite?
• What spiritual practices support that?
• What daily spiritual practices help me take the longer view?
• Where am I on my path right now?

through the haze of
busyness and
dizziness

it's awfully
hard to see
what lays ahead

or remove
oneself altogether

to step back
and see things
clearly

relying on
God's vision

Listen to this post:

Honor of looking back

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Fri, 9 Jan 2015 08:12:00 -0800

In celebration of writing Salon for the Soul for five years, I am looking back at my most-popular blogs, sharing their essence and patterns and, wondering, what the over-arching message may be. What speaks to people? Apparently surrender, handing over our brokenness, relying on God, following Jesus, finding our gifts in community, blaring at God out of loneliness and seeing ourselves as wounded healers. Thank you for the honor of sharing myself and hoping that, sometimes, Salon for the Soul reflects your thoughts, beliefs and experiences.

#1 Spiritual nakedness

Lay your burden

at the feet of Christ.

Give yourself

unto me.

With those words murmured into my heart during worship, I was able to begin to truly surrender. I have been moving toward this process since June, when Spirit commanded me to lay down on a pew in a Meeting that wasn't my own and surrender.

Sunday, I did lay my troubles at Jesus' feet and gave the rest to God. Suddenly, I felt jolted awake, really awake. A golden light invaded me and I experienced a wonderful lightness. For me, this is surrender.

And, I believe I must do it every day. Every, single one.

Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2013/11/spiritual-nakedness.html

#2 Please, use my brokenness

I awoke with a new prayer on my lips and in my heart yesterday:

Please, use my brokenness.

Certainly, I have prayed for healing and for God to use me, but never to use my brokenness. Before the words formed, there was an image of a mosaic, specifically the cement binding all of the broken pieces together and I knew that's where God, silently and mysteriously, resides. If I can admit that I am I pieces and give them to God, then something transformative can happen. Nothing of my own volition can make this change. I have to totally surrender and let God work.

Am I brave enough for that surrender?

Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2011/11/please-use-my-brokenness.html

#3 Present in the midst

FRIDAY

Driving home from Cleveland, I noticed a peaceful patch of woods and longed to be there, out in Nature and away from the artificiality of the hospital.

SATURDAY

I so craved Mother Nature to recover from the week. After peaking outside, I knew my recovery meant getting out there.

SUNDAY

As I sat in worship, soaking in the sacredness, someone smelling of soap and sausage plopped next to me. Permeated, I reluctantly opened my eyes to my friend Patia. "I thought you could use an angel," she said as she kissed my cheek and offered her hand.

MONDAY

Hurriedly walking to yoga, then catching the silken sky reminded me of how much more there is to life than my current obsessions. "Lift me out of my littleness," I murmured as a prayer.

WEDNESDAY

In my sacred, Quaker Meetinghouse, joyfully finalizing details for a workshop on sacred pain with a beloved partner, I spot a voicemail message. My father says my mother has been moved out of the ICU. THANK YOU, I sing and dance.

THURSDAY

I sink my teeth back into centering prayer, almost strangled by the phrase "the end of time.” Not end of the world or humanity, but the end of time. I live so constrained by time. Pushed and rushed. What would it be like to live outside of time? To do and act when Divinely inspired?

FRIDAY

My youngest wakes up sick and I am anxious about bringing my mom back next week. The anxiety mounts. I remind myself that I've had a few terrific days making spiritual connections. That I have felt God present and that she will figure all of this out. The burden is not mine.

Oh yeah, I remember.

Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2013/11/present-in-midst.html

#4 A Quaker considers guns

I really do wonder how Jesus would handle this. I think he'd take a deeper look at society and see where we are failing and demand we fix it. First, however, he'd probably walk up, unarmed, to the shooter taking his chances and look him in the eye, witnessing his wholeness and goodness, not just the evil he projects. After all, the shooter is as much a child of God as his victims.

My heart is not legislated by human law, but by Spirit’s. Life is about constantly dying; none of it is easy. Dying from our ego and into Divine union. I do not fear death; to me it’s the ultimate surrender. Of course, I don’t wish to die violently, at the hands of a shooter, but my prayer would be that I could look that person in the eye and see that of God in them.

Maybe if that had happened once, the shooter would not even have a gun.

Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-quaker-considers-guns.html

#5 Surrender as a gift

Spiritual gifts, a topic near and dear to me, have been on my mind and heart as I read and prepare for a full-day retreat on an annual Quaker renewal day.

Of course, I have plenty of play planned. Play that gets us out of our heads and into our hearts, where we may better discern our gifts and those of others. The person who can look inside and see it all clearly is in the minority. Most of us need encouragement and nurture from each other.

"It is the faith community's responsibility to name giftedness of its members because we cannot see ourselves clearly," Lloyd Lee Wilson writes in Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order.

When that happens it “frees the individual from fear, hesitation and caution,” according to Quaker Marty Grundy, who also taught me that the burden of translation, when listening deeply, prayerfully, to another is on the listener. I call it listening by heart, beyond the words and to the other person's heart.

Perhaps seeing gifts in another is a similar process. A looking beyond the surface, deeper, to that place God resides in each of us.

Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2013/09/surrender-as-gift.html

#6 At odds with God

God, I am blaring, what am I supposed to do right now?

For Pete’s sake, I’ve been discerning your message from June asking me to surrender. I can’t even be clear on that with the help of a clearness committee. First it seemed I was to give up the rigidity of the fibromyalgia. But it got worse, not better. And, in this time, I have discovered healing energy in my hands, even consciously used them on another. Now I understand my propensity to touch someone when they are hurting. Do I surrender to this?

Next I thought it was about direction and vocation. Now it seems more about finance and livelihood. I keep reading about the path of descent making one holier and more pure. I tire of that path. I don’t know anyone else on it. It’s lonely and painful.

Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2013/10/at-odds-with-god.html

#7 Other side of grace

Three days ago I felt tested, much like my Quaker friend Patia described about her own life Sunday. "God tests those closest to him," she'd said.

So it was with surprise and gratitude I responded to my 13-year-old's request to walk the local labyrinth. I couldn't help noticing how much each quadrant of the sacred pathway resembled a section of the brain. Perhaps this is why a walking meditation works so well for me – it quiets my mind, I surmised.

A tapping webinar I stumbled onto demonstrated how this process can release the body from its frozen state between fight or flight in the amygdala, the part of the brain that the labyrinth mimics, and trigger relaxation.

So relaxed and unfrozen, I encountered a friend who practices healing touch. "You have the gift," she told me after experiencing it. "Yes," I replied, "when I can get myself out of the way” which, she admitted, was the challenge. She encouraged asked me to center and place my hands on her injured ribs. I felt the surge again and so did she. We just stood there touching each other tenderly.

"This is what real connection means, doesn't it?" I finally asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah it really is. I felt things settle, what did you feel?"

"The energy, but I also saw green."

"Love," she said with a smile.

"The heart chakra," I chimed in.

Wounded healers, we agreed.

Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2013/09/other-side-of-grace.html

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Basking in my own Sophia

cathybarney@the-nose.com (Cathy Barney) — Tue, 6 Jan 2015 08:07:00 -0800

Saturday, I gave myself the luxury of spending an entire day on retreat, delving into the lessons of 2014 and looking ahead to 2015. I had planned to do the same last year, but awoke sick and cancelled. Fortunately, the leader walked me through the exercises, which I completed on my own. It took several weeks and I gained a new spiritual director as a result.

I was raring to go this year. At 3 p.m. after a 9 am start, the leader asked what our energy levels were and did we want to knock off early. No way, I said, I was ready to keep moving in this contemplative manner. And so we plodded on.

Trinity collage

The culmination of the retreat is selecting your word for the new year. You choose after you have mapped out the last year, looked at blessings and burdens and decided what will move forward and what will not. My map was a full-on disaster. Not in the things listed, actually many were blessings, but in the amount. No wonder I struggle with fibro, I thought when I looked at the riot of people, places, events, things for which I am grateful, things I would do differently, ideas that have matured, and the ways I have changed. And when I struck out VERY few to leave behind, it was all too clear that most of the mess will not be moving with me.

Last year's word was purification. After my new spiritual director handed it to me and I dashed to the car, the tears formed. I didn't want this word. Yet, on further reflection and meditation (which the retreat encourages), it did fit because, in a sense, it means freedom. My cinquen, a simple poem, for entering 2014 was:
bold, trusting
energetic, content, balanced
becoming, embracing, loving, freeing
empowered

Looking back, what it turned out to be was:
awareness, balance
gratitude, retreat, love
surrender, consent, blessed, gifted
seamless

I want a seamless life, I noted in my journal. Seamless as in whole and no distinction between spirituality and life. I am beginning to recognize the fruits of the Spirit ( love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, according to Galations 5:22-23) as the result of life in the Spirit.

In continuing to process 2014 via collage, I unconsciously created a trio (trinity) of panels:
1) Releasing the pain, messiness and ugliness of myself to Spirit. Giving it ALL up when we've had enough and understand its not to ours to fix and eventually, surrender into the waiting arms of Jesus.`
2) Recognizing that with broken, jaded eyes all we see is brokenness and division. When the scales have been lifted, we see the Truth and God's reality that there really is no separation, not from birth and death, any thing or any one. All personal experience emanates from the Holy Spirit, God with me.
3) Consenting to God's constant invitation in the midst of both beauty and chaos. This is one step beyond surrender and one of consent to the empty chair God always holds open for us.

From this, I was able to create my "I am" statements:
I am the one healed by consenting to God's invitation .
I am the one who has received new eyes grounded in love, truth, reality and wholeness.
I am the one who consents to live in and with the Mystery of Spirit.
I am one.
I am.
I am seamless.

Sophia collage

We were so nurtured during this time with an abundance of materials, hospitality, beautiful space inside and out, openness, accompaniment and delicious food. Just last month, my pastoral counselor/shaman said I needed more nurturing. That I was burned out. This retreat was wonderful tonic.

After pumpkin-curry soup, a berry-studded salad, flowing drinks and chocolate, then some more reflection time, I was eager to select my new word.

Wisdom. Wow, such a sift.
My first thought was of Sophia and divine wisdom, then my encounter last September with a snake, another symbol of divine wisdom. I chanted my words (wisdom–Sophia-snake) as I walked outside in the warm rain, muddying my boots and traipsing over mole tunnels. Then I came in to journal and the message to relax in, inside, into wisdom, into my inner wisdom emerged. It is God calling me home, much as Dorothy discovers when the ruby slippers she's been wearing will take her home. I have always had the power within.

Sophia
beauty
something ancient
calling me home
golden, wise, revered

home is embedded, imprinted
always been with me
wherever I travel
beyond time

own it

I choose to bask in my own Sophia.

• What am I carrying forward from 2014?
• Where have I witnessed Spirit?
• Where do I hope to encounter God?
• Where am I on the spectrum of surrender and consent?
• What is my poem or word for 2015?

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